Who We Are                .

 

What IS Kaleidoscope Grief Center?

• Arkansas’ only grief center serving children and their families.

• Arkansas’ only center that focuses exclusively on the process of healing through the grief journey.

 

What does Kaleidoscope Grief Center do?

 We promote the process of healing through serving critically ill and grieving children, teens and their families.  We provide education, therapeutic and recreational services, grief support programs and traditional counseling.

 

How do you “serve” these families?

                With our Kaleidoscope of Caring Services:

• Twice monthly Peer Support Bereavement Groups for ages 5-adult.

• Arkansas’ only grief camp, Camp Healing Hearts, for the entire family.

• Individual and/or family grief and bereavement counseling with licensed clinicians.

• Kaleidoscope Kids Club social events for children 5-18.

• Supportive Care for the critically ill child aged birth -18 provides compassionate emotional support for the family.

 

What’s so important about grief work?

• So many children (1.2 million nationally) will lose a parent by age 15 and many more will lose siblings, other relatives, caregivers, and close friends.  These profound losses affect daily lives, academic and social functioning, and growth toward adulthood.

• Children who have experienced these profound losses are more often depressed, angry, distracted in school, and feel alienated from peers.  They display more academic and behavior problems.

• Research shows that the death of a parent may be THE most traumatic single event to affect the well-being and health of a developing child and adult depression, schizophrenia, drug problems and alcohol use may be linked to childhood bereavement.

 

What makes Kaleidoscope Grief Center different?

• We work exclusively with grief and bereavement issues in the family.

• We are nonprofit.

• We provide services regardless of any family’s ability to pay.

 

How are you funded?

• As a nonprofit, we rely on private and corporate community support, donations, and contributions. 

• Fundraisers:  Annual Healing Hearts Auction.  Have-A-Heart Sunday.

• Kaleidoscope Resale Shop.  All purchases benefit Kaleidoscope and our programs.

 

What can I do to help?

                Donate your TIME:  Volunteering:

• Peer Support Bereavement Group Facilitators and/or Helpers

• Camp Healing Hearts Facilitators and/or Helpers

• General office / clerical assistance

• Help with Fundraisers

• Publicity / Marketing

• Kaleidoscope Kids Club chaperones and/or helpers

• Board Membership

 

                Make a Tax-Deductible Contribution or Donation:

                     Monetary:

• As a memorial

• Sponsor a family / child opportunities

                        Peer Support Bereavement Group, $69 per person/month

                        Peer Support Bereavement Group, $207 per family/month

                        Camp Healing Hearts, $71 per person

• Program Sponsorship

• 80% of every donation dollar goes directly to program support

                     Other:

• Items for our Auction

• Gently used or new items for Kaleidoscope Resale Boutique

• Supplies for Programs and/ or Events

• Office Supplies

• Shopping at Kaleidoscope Resale Boutique

 

What are Peer Support Bereavement Groups?

• Held twice monthly in our offices, these concurrent sessions for children and adults help families realize that their reactions and feelings of grief are normal and are actually an expression of healing.

• Although facilitated by clinical staff and trained volunteers, these groups are not clinical therapeutic sessions, but true peer support and mutual aid where kids are helping kids and parents are helping parents.

• Activities vary by age range but include writing a goodbye letter to the deceased and placing it in a helium balloon and releasing it… thereby literally and figuratively “letting go”.

 

How does that help?

                Peer Support Bereavement Groups help children and families:

• Explore and cope with their feelings around death

• Realize that grief is a process, not an event

• Express conflicted emotions surrounding death in an atmosphere of compassion and support

• Feel understood and gain a sense of normalcy

• Understand that they are not to blame for the death

• Not suffer alone

• Rejoin a community of peers

• Regain a sense of control over their lives

 

What is Camp Healing Hearts?

• Arkansas’ first and only grief camp for children and their families.  We offer therapeutic and recreational activities designed to help families reflect on their experiences, reconnect with each other, and rediscover hope for the future.

• Developed and facilitated by a growing community coalition of experts in the grief field.

• Incorporates Peer Support Bereavement Groups

• Recreational activities include Ropes Courses, Fishing, Arts & Crafts

 

                For 2008 it will be held May 16-May17 at the newly renovated Camp Aldersgate.